[ William's experience with his telepathy is that it's always there, always active, and he can hear the murmuring of voices as one might hear a crowded hallway. Conversations picked up in snatches or if he concentrates, but only those that are loud are usually clearest. "Loud" usually means emotionally sensitive in some way and so this is an unfamiliar sensation. ]
[ The feeling of something - of emptiness - skirts in some part of the castle. He doesn't notice it at first in the same way someone might hear a passing conversation. He can't describe it as getting louder, but it gets more intense in the way that same loudness might. He doesn't often actively try to use his telepathy - a fact he's aware he probably should now or Agatha might get onto him for - but he tries now reaching out mentally to the inky space that should be a mind but isn't. ]
[ And then everything goes black. It's enough to cause a moment of panic in its wild equal familiarity and unfamiliarity - because he can't help but think of that nothingness that came from the end of Westview. Except here it's quiet and there's no sense of the whirling sound of a world collapsing on itself. ]
[ It's quiet, empty, and dark - and he gets the sense he's not alone. His mental voice is quiet and confused, too, as it reaches: ]
[ His voice echoes slightly throughout the vast, quiet darkness. It is still in the place, though every step he takes creates a ripple underfoot, like he's walking on black, still waters. The darkness is vast and all-encompassing. And it is oh... so....
Quiet.
Still.
Until, after a moment, something answers him. ]
Hi.
[ A voice behind him. Small, soft. When he turns around, a girl stands there, like she'd always been there, even when he was alone just a moment ago. She frowns up at him with her wide brown eyes, surprisingly serious for a little girl who cannot be older than 13 or so. ]
[ He doesn't think about how it feels like he has some conscious form when he turns - it feels natural enough, as so much of his own magick does. His head tilting slightly at the younger teenager's greeting. He's still himself, stillness comes easy. ]
[ But he almost smiles at the comment. ]
Neither was I.
[ Looking for her he means. ] You're quiet.
[ a beat ] Or create quiet? On the inside, I mean.
[ Eleven. Because El is for friends, and she does not know him, and because she tried on Jane, and it never ended up feeling like it fits. Just another costume, like Nancy's pink dress and Hopper's flannel shirts, and Kali's clothes.
These thoughts skitter across her mind like spiders.
She does not like that he is here. ]
This is mine. I didn't invite you.
[ It frightens her, that he reached in. Charles didn't, not without permission. She took Charles into the void, and he could have barged in. The last thing that slipped into the darkness of her mind unbidden was a thing of growling, wet flesh and a head that opened like a flower and was full of teeth.
He can tell, perhaps, that she is not really here, and neither is he. He's still where he was before, and she is somewhere else entirely in the fae realm as well. And yet here they are, sharing space in the void. ]
[ Eleven. El is for friends. It's probably a good thing that she doesn't consider someone in her mind a potential friend - He can't blame her. Going by "Billy," would be a personal closeness he hasn't quite reached with most people yet. He's barely come to terms with it himself. ]
[ He doesn't move - at least - and save for what is clearly an initial invasion he tries not to go further. He's his own still vacuum, but the younger teenager's worries and thoughts come in trembling waves. He can feel the fear in the statement. Does not ask who Charles is. ]
I didn't mean to visit - Not exactly?
[ He starts and amends the truth, slightly apologetic. ]
I hear thoughts - people - all the time. It doesn't turn off and you were particularly -
[ A beat as he tries to think about how to express it. Loud isn't the word, he knows it's not the word. Empty sounds cruel. And so he settles on the word he said first and foremost. ]
Intensely quiet. The more intense people are the louder it is for me. So whatever you're doing - [ He shrugs. ] Spoke to me? I can try to leave.
[ Her mouth opens in a little "oh". Understanding blossoms in her mind, rippling deeper. Her mind is a strange thing - malnourished and hungry, it wants to understand and learn, but it can also make her skittish and wary like a starving animal. ]
You're.. like Charles.
[ The image flits through her mind then, of Charles Xavier in his wheelchair, in his room here in the castle. And a memory, too - an image of how Charles sees the world, the way he showed her:
The castle and the town beyond and the forest beyond that, a map shaped not by the locations themselves but by the overlay of every mind within them. An ocean of flickering fireflies, and each of those fireflies humming with their own life and feelings and memories. There is an enormous noise only barely held at bay, a thousand voices speaking at once.
It flickers through her thoughts briefly, and she watches the older boy with wary curiosity, seeing if like Charles, he could see that, feel that. ]
William.
[ She doesn't pronounce it quite right. More like Wil-Liam. The emphasis not quite where it should be. And for a moment she thinks of Will, too, of the small boy who was swallowed up by the gate she opened. She wonders if this boy is a Will, too.
She looks around, briefly, as if looking at the darkness for the first time. Eleven believes she could push him out, if she wanted to - this is a thought that might be entirely untrue, but she believes it, at least. ]
[Charles, she says again and he tilts his head a touch in question. She seems to categorize things into what she knows - He can't blame her. He must have done something similar in the early days of the amnesia. He'd made so many neat little boxes in his head of who William was and in what ways, important interested and dislikes.
It's different, but similar. ]
[ This close the thought bridges over like it's nothing. He doesn't have to seek out a memory she actively gives and he takes a shaky breath. Closes his eyes a moment. ]
... It's a lot like that, yeah. I think the differences are in the intensities and where.
[ But he can't know from an image shared with another. ]
[ It's strange yet to think there might be someone else in this castle who has such a similar experience. The thought alone makes his stomach scrunch up like a spring pressed together. Wanda was always an almost certainly but - ]
[ She says his name. Not quite correctly, but he nods anyway. It's close enough it doesn't matter, even if the name doesn't quite fit right anymore. Has never quite fit right, but same as her it's become a name that's much like dress-up clothes than anything else. ]
[Do you like the quiet? His own eyes glance over the void as if he might see something. It remains still. There is no noise. In truth, perhaps this particular part unsettles him a little, if only because of that distant memory. Of feeling like he's in a space where he doesn't exist again. ]
[ He swallows it back, because that's a different part - neither here nor there. And, more importantly, he thinks that a rejection of it is a rejection of her. He gets the feeling he doesn't need more of that. ]
... I do.
[ After a moment and quietly said. His smile is a little more easy, if a touch more shy. ]
Weird too, in a way? Because I never really get quiet. Ever. So it feels strange -
but it's nice.
[ A beat. ]
Do you like the quiet? ... or were you just looking?
[ He's not sure what that means for her. Maybe, she too, can seek out minds and it's how she does it if their speaking now is anything to show for it. ]
[ She shrugs a little. Eleven has no concept of how or why that might not be okay - she has a power, and she uses it to watch over her friends, make sure they're okay, make sure they're accounted for.
She also keeps an eye on something in the basement, but she tries not to think about it too much.
The boy though... William.
Eleven remembers making her first friend, less than a year ago. Being offered shelter. Being treated like a person for the first time in her small, isolated little life. ]
Do you want to come here? When it's too loud. Or when you're sad.
[ She took Clint here, when he cried about Natasha. A sad man on the verge of panic in a crowd, and she'd made everything quiet for him for a while. She let Charles in because he asked to see how she sees things in the void. It's her space, and she has no defenses here - but she can make room in the darkness of her mind for others, even just a little bit. ]
[ Can you hear her brain rattling on that for a moment, Tony? Because it rattles. Possibly gets stuck a few times. Finally just gives up. Files this under 'Tony is just Like That' and leaves it alone. ]
[ Yeah, Tony liked Erik too. Nice guy. Kinda has terrifying powers, but, well. Bruce. ]
Oh. [ He's not... Sure how to take that. ] Well that's... [ Good? Bad? Tony decides to let El decide that one. ] ...At least a sign we might have a way back.
Hullo my dear, it's the less-pretty Nancy. A few people have mentioned you to me lately, so I thought I'd reach out, say hello again.
[She's not absolutely sure why, but maybe it's because this girl is hardly older than she was when she started going with Bill, but Nancy's been thinking of Eleven a lot more, too. And so she reaches out, thinking what she would have liked to hear when she was thirteen and surrounded by boys and men and would have done anything for a warm female figure.]
I was wondering if perhaps you wanted to come out shopping with me? There's a new booth in the market I saw. Looks like they sell sweets- I'd be happy to get you a bag, if you'd like.
[She wants this girl to have a childhood. She, like all children, deserves it, and something about her makes Nancy wonder if hers had been ripped away from her, too.]
[ Nancy will not see that, but the first line actually does make Eleven smile. ]
hi, less-pretty nancy
[ There's a part of her that recognizes she was mean to Nancy. Perhaps it can be a joke instead of a mean thing, though. (And perhaps she will change her mind on the unflattering moniker soon enough). ]
you want to buy me sweets even though I was mean to you?
[ Strangely, she's reminded of Max, whose entire presence in Mike's life made Eleven seethe, even when the girl was excited to meet her. Eleven tragically doesn't quite have the self-reflection to wonder if she should stop letting her own pettiness drive her sometimes. Oh, to be 13 and poorly socialised. ]
[Nancy is secure enough in her looks to know that it's okay if someone else is prettier than her. There are plenty of women here prettier than her, as she was learning first-hand. Oh, pretty women, her newest weakness.]
I do. [And now comes the part where she says 'we should talk' but she doesn't know what about and really she just wants to see a thirteen-year-old girl who looks like her and realize how wrong so much of her life was, and feel good about putting it behind her. But that's too much to put on anyone's shoulders. So she doesn't say it.]
Are you telling me you're going to turn down sweets? If that's the case, maybe I can offer a pretty dress, or a hair comb?
It might be very easy to bribe this girl, honestly. Sweet tooth confirmed. ]
we can meet and shop
[ It's a novelty that she hasn't yet gotten to experience. Back home she was so isolated, always in hiding. Here, she skirts the edges. She's gotten some new clothes, but her only guide has been Laura, a girl basically as much of a gremlin as Eleven herself. ]
you don't know? it's the most important word. mouthbreathers are mean bullies who pick on other people and hurt them, so it's fine to hurt them back.
so if someone is mean to you, you can call them a mouthbreather and hurt them. or you tell me, I'm stronger than you, and I can take care of them for you
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
~ a void ~
[ The feeling of something - of emptiness - skirts in some part of the castle. He doesn't notice it at first in the same way someone might hear a passing conversation. He can't describe it as getting louder, but it gets more intense in the way that same loudness might. He doesn't often actively try to use his telepathy - a fact he's aware he probably should now or Agatha might get onto him for - but he tries now reaching out mentally to the inky space that should be a mind but isn't. ]
[ And then everything goes black. It's enough to cause a moment of panic in its wild equal familiarity and unfamiliarity - because he can't help but think of that nothingness that came from the end of Westview. Except here it's quiet and there's no sense of the whirling sound of a world collapsing on itself. ]
[ It's quiet, empty, and dark - and he gets the sense he's not alone. His mental voice is quiet and confused, too, as it reaches: ]
Hello?
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Quiet.
Still.
Until, after a moment, something answers him. ]
Hi.
[ A voice behind him. Small, soft. When he turns around, a girl stands there, like she'd always been there, even when he was alone just a moment ago. She frowns up at him with her wide brown eyes, surprisingly serious for a little girl who cannot be older than 13 or so. ]
I was. Not looking for you.
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[ The quiet is nice. ]
[ And then there's a voice. ]
[ He doesn't think about how it feels like he has some conscious form when he turns - it feels natural enough, as so much of his own magick does. His head tilting slightly at the younger teenager's greeting. He's still himself, stillness comes easy. ]
[ But he almost smiles at the comment. ]
Neither was I.
[ Looking for her he means. ] You're quiet.
[ a beat ] Or create quiet? On the inside, I mean.
I'm William.
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I'm Eleven.
[ Eleven. Because El is for friends, and she does not know him, and because she tried on Jane, and it never ended up feeling like it fits. Just another costume, like Nancy's pink dress and Hopper's flannel shirts, and Kali's clothes.
These thoughts skitter across her mind like spiders.
She does not like that he is here. ]
This is mine. I didn't invite you.
[ It frightens her, that he reached in. Charles didn't, not without permission. She took Charles into the void, and he could have barged in. The last thing that slipped into the darkness of her mind unbidden was a thing of growling, wet flesh and a head that opened like a flower and was full of teeth.
He can tell, perhaps, that she is not really here, and neither is he. He's still where he was before, and she is somewhere else entirely in the fae realm as well. And yet here they are, sharing space in the void. ]
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[ He doesn't move - at least - and save for what is clearly an initial invasion he tries not to go further. He's his own still vacuum, but the younger teenager's worries and thoughts come in trembling waves. He can feel the fear in the statement. Does not ask who Charles is. ]
I didn't mean to visit - Not exactly?
[ He starts and amends the truth, slightly apologetic. ]
I hear thoughts - people - all the time. It doesn't turn off and you were particularly -
[ A beat as he tries to think about how to express it. Loud isn't the word, he knows it's not the word. Empty sounds cruel. And so he settles on the word he said first and foremost. ]
Intensely quiet. The more intense people are the louder it is for me. So whatever you're doing - [ He shrugs. ] Spoke to me? I can try to leave.
[ He cannot promise he can. ]
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You're.. like Charles.
[ The image flits through her mind then, of Charles Xavier in his wheelchair, in his room here in the castle. And a memory, too - an image of how Charles sees the world, the way he showed her:
The castle and the town beyond and the forest beyond that, a map shaped not by the locations themselves but by the overlay of every mind within them. An ocean of flickering fireflies, and each of those fireflies humming with their own life and feelings and memories. There is an enormous noise only barely held at bay, a thousand voices speaking at once.
It flickers through her thoughts briefly, and she watches the older boy with wary curiosity, seeing if like Charles, he could see that, feel that. ]
William.
[ She doesn't pronounce it quite right. More like Wil-Liam. The emphasis not quite where it should be. And for a moment she thinks of Will, too, of the small boy who was swallowed up by the gate she opened. She wonders if this boy is a Will, too.
She looks around, briefly, as if looking at the darkness for the first time. Eleven believes she could push him out, if she wanted to - this is a thought that might be entirely untrue, but she believes it, at least. ]
Do you like the quiet?
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It's different, but similar. ]
[ This close the thought bridges over like it's nothing. He doesn't have to seek out a memory she actively gives and he takes a shaky breath. Closes his eyes a moment. ]
... It's a lot like that, yeah. I think the differences are in the intensities and where.
[ But he can't know from an image shared with another. ]
[ It's strange yet to think there might be someone else in this castle who has such a similar experience. The thought alone makes his stomach scrunch up like a spring pressed together. Wanda was always an almost certainly but - ]
[ She says his name. Not quite correctly, but he nods anyway. It's close enough it doesn't matter, even if the name doesn't quite fit right anymore. Has never quite fit right, but same as her it's become a name that's much like dress-up clothes than anything else. ]
[ Do you like the quiet? His own eyes glance over the void as if he might see something. It remains still. There is no noise. In truth, perhaps this particular part unsettles him a little, if only because of that distant memory. Of feeling like he's in a space where he doesn't exist again. ]
[ He swallows it back, because that's a different part - neither here nor there. And, more importantly, he thinks that a rejection of it is a rejection of her. He gets the feeling he doesn't need more of that. ]
... I do.
[ After a moment and quietly said. His smile is a little more easy, if a touch more shy. ]
Weird too, in a way? Because I never really get quiet. Ever. So it feels strange -
but it's nice.
[ A beat. ]
Do you like the quiet? ... or were you just looking?
[ He's not sure what that means for her. Maybe, she too, can seek out minds and it's how she does it if their speaking now is anything to show for it. ]
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I was watching my friends.
[ She shrugs a little. Eleven has no concept of how or why that might not be okay - she has a power, and she uses it to watch over her friends, make sure they're okay, make sure they're accounted for.
She also keeps an eye on something in the basement, but she tries not to think about it too much.
The boy though... William.
Eleven remembers making her first friend, less than a year ago. Being offered shelter. Being treated like a person for the first time in her small, isolated little life. ]
Do you want to come here? When it's too loud. Or when you're sad.
[ She took Clint here, when he cried about Natasha. A sad man on the verge of panic in a crowd, and she'd made everything quiet for him for a while. She let Charles in because he asked to see how she sees things in the void. It's her space, and she has no defenses here - but she can make room in the darkness of her mind for others, even just a little bit. ]
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un: iamironman
[ A beat. ] Call me back when you can, kid. Got a couple questions.
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There are no. Magnet birds....
[ Why must he always confuse her? She'll allow it. Because of the waffle iron.
And after a moment: ]
Yes. I wanted to see my friends. So... I looked.
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[ Any way! ] And you... Did? You saw them?
I genuinely thought i had responded to this I'm so sorry
I like Erik.
[ After a moment. ]
Yes. I saw them. They are. They are very happy.
you're all good!!
Oh. [ He's not... Sure how to take that. ] Well that's... [ Good? Bad? Tony decides to let El decide that one. ] ...At least a sign we might have a way back.
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She's quiet for a moment, picks at the fabric of her clothes. Then, a little petulant: ]
The fairies said. They're dead. But they're happy. Happy... without me. [ A beat. ] I think I'm... angry.
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You wanna... Talk about it?
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It's not fair.
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text | un: loki
GIRLS NIGHT
be there or be square
text, un: mrssikes
A few people have mentioned you to me lately, so I thought I'd reach out, say hello again.
[She's not absolutely sure why, but maybe it's because this girl is hardly older than she was when she started going with Bill, but Nancy's been thinking of Eleven a lot more, too. And so she reaches out, thinking what she would have liked to hear when she was thirteen and surrounded by boys and men and would have done anything for a warm female figure.]
I was wondering if perhaps you wanted to come out shopping with me? There's a new booth in the market I saw. Looks like they sell sweets- I'd be happy to get you a bag, if you'd like.
[She wants this girl to have a childhood. She, like all children, deserves it, and something about her makes Nancy wonder if hers had been ripped away from her, too.]
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hi, less-pretty nancy
[ There's a part of her that recognizes she was mean to Nancy. Perhaps it can be a joke instead of a mean thing, though. (And perhaps she will change her mind on the unflattering moniker soon enough). ]
you want to buy me sweets
even though I was mean to you?
[ Strangely, she's reminded of Max, whose entire presence in Mike's life made Eleven seethe, even when the girl was excited to meet her. Eleven tragically doesn't quite have the self-reflection to wonder if she should stop letting her own pettiness drive her sometimes. Oh, to be 13 and poorly socialised. ]
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I do. [And now comes the part where she says 'we should talk' but she doesn't know what about and really she just wants to see a thirteen-year-old girl who looks like her and realize how wrong so much of her life was, and feel good about putting it behind her. But that's too much to put on anyone's shoulders. So she doesn't say it.]
Are you telling me you're going to turn down sweets? If that's the case, maybe I can offer a pretty dress, or a hair comb?
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[ Oh that message comes REAL quick.
It might be very easy to bribe this girl, honestly. Sweet tooth confirmed. ]
we can meet
and shop
[ It's a novelty that she hasn't yet gotten to experience. Back home she was so isolated, always in hiding. Here, she skirts the edges. She's gotten some new clothes, but her only guide has been Laura, a girl basically as much of a gremlin as Eleven herself. ]
I will be nicer
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But I do appreciate it.
Alright, sweets and shopping it is. Thank you for humoring me, I’m looking forward to it.
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I just got upset because you look a bit like me but old and pretty
I get mean when I'm upset
when do we go?
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It's alright. You're very pretty yourself, you know. Probably prettier than I was at your age.
Whenever you'd like.
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so if someone is mean to you, you can call them a mouthbreather and hurt them. or you tell me, I'm stronger than you, and I can take care of them for you
I want now
[ She's a demanding little girl. ]
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